Movies
[TV] Am I In An Undead Nightmare? “The Walking Dead” Hires New Writers For Season Four.
I am so sick of talking about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans over at AMC. Without the help of Lionsgate, the cabler has been treading water with their zombie series “The Walking Dead,” having publicly battled writers and showrunners for three seasons now. The show has gotten better, sure, but it’s still nowhere near as good as “Mad Men” or “Breaking Bad”; in fact, I think it’s beyond repair. But whatever, everyone loves it, and I support that. And even through all of these trepidations, AMC is still working their ass off to fix the problems. At least they’re trying.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, AMC’s “The Walking Dead” is bulking up its writers’ room for season four. Curtis Gwinn and Channing Powell will join Matt Negrete on the staff of the zombie drama under new showrunner Scott Gimple. Supervising producer/writer Gwinn counts Adult Swim comedy NTSF:SD:SVU and MTV’s zombie parody Death Valley among his credits, while co-executive producer/writer Powell — like Negrete — is a White Collar alum.
The duo join a staff that also includes Gimple, who has been with the series since season two, executive producer Robert Kirkman (who created the comics on which the drama is based), Negrete, newly promoted executive producer Greg Nicotero, Gale Anne Hurd, Dave Alpert, Evan T. Reilly, Angela Kang and Nichole Beattie, among others.
The additions come as “Walking Dead” bulks up following the departure of Glen Mazzara, who exited the series as showrunner in December when the network renewed the series for its fourth season.
Described as “Ted meets ET,” David Mikalson’s raunchy comedy Goblin is being brought to life over at A24, and Will Forte (“The Four Seasons”) is now in talks to star.
Deadline first reported the news this afternoon.
Kenneth Branagh has been cast to voice the titular Goblin in the upcoming A24 movie, with the character said to be “green-colored” as well as “anatomically correct.”
Skyler Gisondo (Superman) is reportedly playing the Goblin’s human best friend.
The mysterious project sounds a bit like films including A Gnome Named Gnorm and more recently, Frankie Freako, though it’s important to note that it’s not billed as a horror movie.
Deadline details, “After [Mikalson] hatched the idea to make an outrageous buddy comedy about a goblin, using a practical puppet and operating outside the Hollywood system, his script quickly got him a rep team. While others might have eyed the raunchy comedy as a writing sample or planned to wait to see the micro-budget version Mikalson has been directing in Kentucky, A24 jumped all over it. The hot indie essentially has agreed to finance a full feature.”
“There was a lot of interest, but A24 came with what Mikalson really wanted, after spending all his money crafting the puppet title character: they acquired the movie and agreed to let him make it with a significantly increased budget than what he had left after creating the anatomically correct title character,” Deadline’s report goes on to explain.
What does the titular Goblin actually look like? Well, a cake that Mikalson had whipped up for his reps might give us our first look at what to expect. Deadline explains the photo you’ll see down below, “Take a look at the cake he commissioned with Marc Gravelle at Cake Art in West Hollywood, to present to his reps as thanks for making his dream come true.”
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